Handcuffs and a Hotel Room
by tpel
Summary: Agent Lang's point of view.  What if things had gone a little differently, starting the night before Alex Mahone's hearing?  Despite the title, it's not THAT kind of story!
1. Chapter 1

Author's note: This story picks up after the end of Vamanos, then goes slightly AU, exploring how things might have gone a little differently. I plan to have two chapters, plus a short epilogue.

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Every federal agent has a moment of truth, in which he, or in this case she, knows whether she is cut out for the job.

Felicia Lang understood that this old chestnut held a kernel of truth, but that it radically oversimplified matters. There is no one moment that sets the question to rest. She had experienced several such trials, and had always acquitted herself admirably. She knew that she could do what needed to be done, regardless of the circumstances. Sometimes that meant staring down a cold-blooded killer to keep innocents out of harm's way; sometimes it meant blackmailing a mother with the prospect of losing her child to foster care. They might call her a heartless bitch behind her back, but Lang was quite sure nobody had ever called her a pushover.

Right now, however, sitting on the edge of a tub in a Panamanian hotel bathroom at three-thirty in the morning, with her former boss slumped against the wall next to the toilet, she felt far less decisive than she was accustomed to feeling.

The vomiting had started around midnight, Alex lurching into the bathroom just in time to avoid making an unpleasant mess. At first, Lang kept her distance. Agent Mahone was a proud man, and, despite the fact that he liked to get in people's faces, Lang suspected that he was something of an introvert. At least a modicum of privacy would be important to him. That consideration ended when his cuffed hand slipped off the edge of the sink as he tried to lever himself up to his feet, his shoulder banging against the side of the counter as his knees hit the floor. Lang came into the bathroom to make sure he wasn't injured. Despite Sullins' orders, she uncuffed him and then helped him out of his stained dress shirt.

Since then, every twenty minutes or so Alex would be hunched over the bowl retching, shoulder blades convulsing sharply beneath his sweat-soaked white T-shirt. He'd long since stopped having anything to bring up. Lang guessed that the intervals between these bouts were becoming longer, which was good, but his mental state during said intervals was deteriorating.

At first, she'd been able to converse with him pretty normally, moving her eyes back and forth in time with his manic pacing:

"_Alex, you're in withdrawal. You need medical attention."_

"_No – No! I'm sick means I can't testify," he spat, "which means I'm shipped right back to Sona, where you can be damn sure I won't get anything like medical attention."_

"_The Bureau is committed to . . ."_

"_I don't know what _you_ are committed to" – blue eyes drilling into her brown ones, breaking off as he continued to pace – "but Sullins would dearly love to hang me out to dry."_

The first time he'd wiped his hand across his mouth after vomiting and came away with a streak of blood, he'd dismissed her concerns. Throwing up repeatedly can burst small blood vessels in one's stomach lining. If the blood is bright red and the quantity is small, it's nothing to worry about. As usual, he gave the impression of a man who knew what he was talking about and was mildly impatient with those who knew less than he did.

The second time it happened, he stared transfixed at the blood on his hand, ignoring all of Lang's attempts to get his attention, until finally she took a wet washcloth and wiped it off for him. Then he looked at her as if he were just waking up and didn't quite remember where he was.

After that he was only intermittently coherent. Shuddering uncontrollably, he muttered apologies and pleas to people only he could see. Talking to him didn't seem to help, Lang's voice drowned out by so many others from within. Physically touching him usually got a reaction, but not a positive one. He flinched away violently, disoriented and agitated. Sometimes when the initial panic subsided he would tune in to her for a few minutes; other times he stared at her with an expression of horror that made her skin crawl.

So, here she sat, unwilling to leave him alone, yet unable to be of any real assistance.

Lang was startled out of her thoughts by a soft sound – a cross between a whimper and a growl – from the other side of the bathroom. Alex had drawn his knees up close to his chest. His left arm was wrapped partially around them, while his right was raised in a defensive pose. He muttered unintelligibly as his eyes darted around to several points a few feet away from him, fixating briefly on nothing and then moving on. Watching with morbid fascination, Lang saw that the points he gazed at were getting closer and closer to him, and that his distress was increasing rapidly.

His vocalizations became clearer: "No . . . I didn't want to . . . I'm sorry . . . don't . . . please . . . no . . ." Back pressed to the wall, Alex thrashed, desperately trying to avoid the touches of invisible assailants. His eyes were squeezed shut, head shaking in jerky motions as if emphatically denying a reality he couldn't cope with.

Lang couldn't take it any more; she had to intervene (it was because she was afraid he would hyperventilate, she told herself). Pushing off from the tub, she sat down on the floor facing the former Agent and put her hands on his shoulders, gripping tightly as he tried to pull away.

"Alex," she shouted, "Alex!"

He didn't respond, so she shook him firmly. His eyes snapped open, but he looked through her rather than at her, still caught up in his waking nightmare. When he started struggling again, she loosened her grip, letting her hands slide off his shoulders to his upper arms. "It's me, Alex," she said, trying to project calm clarity, "It's Lang. It's Felicia."

Finally, recognition dawned. "Felicia," he echoed.

"Uh huh," she nodded encouragingly.

Alex shot a furtive glance to the side and jumped, apparently startled at whatever it was that he saw. Closing his eyes as the tremors that ripped through his body intensified, he folded his arms across the tops of his knees and buried his face in them.

"Make it stop," he whispered brokenly, "Please . . ."

"It's OK, it's OK, you're going to be alright," Lang soothed.

Listening to his ragged breathing, holding his arms as his shoulders shook spasmodically, she was seized by a strong desire to make everything better. Yet she had no idea how. There were medications, of course, that could ease his symptoms. But how could they get them? Mahone's point earlier was valid – the diversion of taking him to a doctor or a clinic might sour the deal with the Panamanians. Were they in the States, Lang had no doubt she could use her FBI credentials and contacts to obtain some kind of sedative with no questions asked. Here, that would prove more difficult. Obtaining street drugs, even if she were inclined to do so, would also be problematic in a strange country in the middle of the night.

Then there was the matter of Sullins. Perhaps he could be persuaded that keeping Alex reasonably sane was a necessary condition of their succeeding in their mission. Sullins was, after all, a professional. But he also harbored quite a bit of animosity toward Mahone. Would his desire to see his old enemy suffer win out over his desire to get the job done? Did he have any other ulterior motives?

No, confiding in him would be too risky. Which meant that any move she made would have to be without her superior's knowledge. She was free to go back to her room or even to leave the hotel if she wished, but Alex needed to be under observation, and if she passed off the job to somebody else, word of his condition would get out. And, no, leaving him unsupervised was not an option.

Alex was looking at her again, or, at least, looking in her general direction. "I've done some very bad things," he murmured hoarsely. The statement might have sounded child-like, if not for the hollowness in his voice and the washed-out deadness in his eyes.

"I know," Lang replied, her tone gentle. She had the decency not to say 'It's OK.'

"I need . . . something . . . to help me get it together," he said, eyes downcast, face turned away, "And I hate it and I'm sorry to put you in this position but I can't be like this tomorrow and I . . . I'm sorry . . ."

When he'd trailed off, Lang explained, "I want to help you, Alex, really I do. And maybe in the morning, depending on the timing of the hearing, there might be a chance I can get you something. But right this minute it's impossible to do so without jeopardizing your chances of even _having_ a hearing."

"I need . . ." he protested, then broke off, shoulders slumping in resignation, and mumbled, "I can't do it."

"Yes, you can," she replied firmly, "You don't have to appear healthy tomorrow, just lucid and honest."

"Yeah, well, seeing as I'm seeing dead people, I kind of doubt I'll pass the lucidity test," he shot back. Lang detected a shadow of his old dry humor in the statement. When he glanced over her shoulder, presumably to check whether any of his "friends" were still there, she scolded him playfully, "Stop that!" and a corner of his mouth quirked up just a bit.

"You seem pretty sane right now. We're just going to have to hold onto that for a few hours."

Lang hoped her companion would find the plural pronoun reassuring, but his face was a study in defeat. "Alex?" she prompted.

After a long moment he sighed, "I'm tired."

"Why don't you try to rest and –"

Shaking his head, he insisted, "No. Can't. Can't sleep. If I relax for even a second it . . . it gets worse. Not just seeing them, they're . . . they're inside my head and . . . I have to concentrate, to hold on to . . . me . . . because they're always there, always waiting for me to slip up, to lose control . . ."

Lang nodded sympathetically. Alex rubbed his eyes, leaving his hand covering them, and continued in a raw, strained voice, "They're relentless and I just want it to stop, just for a little while. Maybe I could . . . regroup. But it won't, it just never stops . . ."

He was trembling with exhaustion, and Felicia found herself unconsciously stroking his biceps with her thumbs. Suddenly, she was struck with an idea. A brilliant idea or an awful idea, it was hard to tell, but definitely an against-protocol idea. Sullins would most certainly not approve. It might not work at all, and it might actually make matters worse – though it was hard to imagine how things could get much worse than they were now.

Coming to a decision, she let go of Alex's arms and began rising to her feet. His hand fell away from his eyes and, for a fleeting moment, he stared up at her completely unguarded, fragile, a drowning man who just had the life preserver yanked from his grasp. Then he looked away, shame at his own weakness flickering across his features. Responding to his unspoken plea, she assured him, "I'm not going far. I'm just making a phone call. I'll be back in a minute."

She took one of the large hotel towels from the rack and wrapped it around him to help with the shivering, then exited the bathroom and pulled out her cell phone. As she looked up the number, she recalled a conversation she'd had just prior to leaving for this mission:

"_Pamela Mahone on line two," came the request-slash-order. Wheeler, you prick, Lang thought, sticking me with this. Then again, for Agent Mahone's sake, it might be better that she take this call rather than letting an agent less charitably inclined toward their recently departed boss do it. _

"_Good morning Mrs. Mahone, I'm Special Agent Felicia Lang. I've worked with your husband."_

_The woman on the other end, who had probably been bounced around the bureau's bureaucracy for a bit already, cut right to the chase, "What can you tell me about Alex?"_

"_You understand, of course, that information about federal agents is classified, and since you are no longer married to him . . ."_

"_He's in serious trouble, isn't he?" Pam queried. When Lang didn't reply immediately, she followed up with, "We were married for twelve years. He's the father of my child. I think I have a right to know."_

_Mahone had never discussed his ex-wife with her, but Lang had surmised that the woman would either be weak, overwhelmed by her husband's dynamic personality, or that she would be a force to be reckoned with. Lang just couldn't picture him with anyone in between. And given how this conversation was going, she was strongly leaning toward the latter alternative._

"_Yes, he's in trouble," Lang confirmed._

"_But you can't tell me any specifics, right?" Pam said, exasperation in her voice evident, but controlled. "OK, fine, I'll tell you what _I_ know: he called me last Thursday. He didn't tell me where he was, but the call was from Panama, a pay phone. The number is listed under the criminal justice system."_

_Lang noted that this call was more recent than any of the Bureau's contacts with Alex. "What, exactly, did he tell you when he called?"_

"_He said . . . he said to forget he ever existed. He . . . he was crying," Pam stammered, sounding like she was too, "I need to know what's going on."_

"_Alex is currently in Panama. He is incarcerated," Lang replied carefully. The last bit would be a matter of public record by now, anyway._

"_What? For what? Was he down there working on a case? Isn't Panama outside of your jurisdiction?"_

"_He hasn't had a trial yet."_

"_That's not really answering my questions, is it? What aren't you telling me?"_

"_Quite a bit, I'm afraid," Lang shot back, then softened her tone, "I'm sorry, but I'm not authorized to share the information you want."_

"_Are you his friend?"_

"_I don't see –"_

"_I don't recall him mentioning an Agent Lang, but we've been out of touch for a while. Surely _that_ information isn't classified?"_

"_I've only worked with Agent Mahone for a short time – he's my direct supervisor. So, no, I wouldn't exactly say that we're friends. But I like him and I want this situation to work out as well as possible for him."_

"_Then you should know that unless you give me a very good reason not to, my next step is to get on a plane to Panama and find out what I can for myself."_

_Just what they needed: a civilian poking around a delicate diplomatic situation, perhaps putting herself in danger. And Lang could tell that the woman wasn't bluffing. Both irritated and impressed at being backed into a corner, she began, "Here's your good reason: we're working on a plan to bring Alex back to the States . . ."_

Back in Panama, Lang dialed the number. Hearing the other end pick up, she said, "Pam, I need your help."

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To be continued. Please let me know what you think.


	2. Chapter 2

Agent Lang sat in a chair across from the bathroom, door ajar, trying to listen and not listen at the same time. It had been about an hour since she'd handed Alex the phone and told him that Pam was on the other end. She could still picture the look of stunned disbelief on his face. He'd resisted for all of two seconds, protesting that he didn't want to jerk his wife around any more than he had already. But they both knew that he couldn't refuse the phone right then any more than he could refuse a suitable narcotic.

Lang had backed off a bit, monitoring what was going on so that she could intervene if Mahone seemed to be veering off the deep end, but trying not to hear specific details that she might be asked to testify to, should his misdeeds come to trial. This latter goal was difficult to achieve, since he seemed inclined to confess. Repeatedly. Given that his narrative was far from linear, however, one who wasn't familiar with the cases might have trouble following what exactly had happened in each one:

"_. . . He was a stupid kid, not a dangerous criminal. Shales deserved to die, but this boy didn't. I shot him."_

"_Yes, he's dead. I'm a good shot, remember?" (hollow laugh) "Oh, God . . ."_

"_I gave Franklin a better deal than they gave me – at least if he killed himself his family would be OK. He has a little girl, a couple of years older than Cam. Tell me again that Cameron's OK, that you're both OK . . ."_

"_He wanted my permission. He didn't want to go back to jail and I told him he couldn't go to Holland – hell if I know why Holland – and he didn't have any other way out. He just wanted it to be over. I gave him permission, gave him the push he needed to do it, and it was over . . . for him, anyway . . ."_

Every so often Alex choked to a halt, overwhelmed. Yet he seemed compelled to keep going, words sometimes tumbling over each other in their urgency to get said. It wasn't clear whether he was trying to explain himself or beat up on himself, or both. But he was talking to a real person about real events, so Lang figured this was an improvement over his earlier state.

Finally, after a lull in his speech during which Lang heard the toilet flush and the water run in the sink, Alex appeared in the doorway and reported, "Pam says I should lie down."

He was able to walk under his own power, but he didn't object to the steadying hand Lang placed on his elbow as she accompanied him to the bed. He smelled of Listerine.

Once he was seated on the side of the bed, Lang went to check on what sleepwear, if any, he had in the travel bag that she and Sullins had taken along from Alex's office. Like most agents who might be called upon to travel at a moment's notice, Mahone kept a bag packed with a couple of days worth of clothing and other necessities. Lang found a blue t-shirt and a pair of sweatpants; the sweatpants were probably too heavy for the climate, but the shirt might be useful.

She returned to the bed as Alex was getting under the covers, having kicked off his shoes and pants. Lang was amused to note that, despite being half out of his mind, he had placed his shoes neatly under the bed and had folded his pants over the foot of the bed. She tossed the t-shirt at him, and, after giving it an appraising look as if wondering whether it was worth the effort, he pulled off his damp shirt and put the blue one on. Then he settled himself in the bed and returned the phone to his ear, saying, "I'm back."

Felicia felt awkward about sitting there while her companion had a personal conversation, but it turned out to not be much of an issue. While in the bathroom, Mahone had done a lot of the talking, but now his end of the conversation faded out and Lang could hear the soft buzzing of a female voice from the phone. Alex's hands were still shaking, so he kept dropping the phone until he curled onto his right side – facing away from Lang, toward the empty side of the bed – and laid the phone over his left ear.

As time passed, Alex's mumbled replies became quieter and less frequent. When Lang realized that she hadn't heard anything from him for at least twenty minutes, she came around the bed and saw that his eyes were closed and face slack, though he was still twitching a bit from muscle spasms. After waiting a little while longer to make sure he was deeply asleep, Lang carefully retrieved her phone. Heading toward the bathroom, she said softly, "Hi Pam – it's Felicia."

"Did you . . . did you know about all this?" the other woman asked, unsteadily.

"We had some evidence. I hoped we were wrong."

"He killed people. I mean, I always knew he'd killed people – in the army and for the FBI when he had to. But this is different. This is . . . this is . . ."

"If it helps, I do believe that he was coerced."

"He murdered people, and some of it was for Cameron and me. What am I supposed to do with that?" Pam's voice was quiet but it held a tinge of hysteria.

Lang's analytic mind spat out the options: Pam would have to either learn to live with what her ex-husband had done or learn to live without him. Not being burdened with a Y chromosome, however, she was able to resist the urge to give a concrete answer to what was clearly a rhetorical question. She shut up and hoped her silence was companionable.

After a long pause, Pam said, "I just want him to be all right. He seems so . . . shattered, and I guess that's good in a way because I can't imagine him still being Alex and not being torn up by all this, but at the same time I can't stand for him to be in so much pain. Is there any way he can get better? How can you get over something like . . . I'm sorry, I'm freaking out a bit. I swear I was much calmer when I was on the phone with him."

"I've heard that the secret to a healthy relationship is to stagger your meltdowns – it was his turn before, now it's yours," Lang joked. At the other woman's somewhat-less-hysterical sounding laugh, she continued, "Whatever you said, it worked. He's asleep, which he needed desperately."

"You'll . . . you'll take care of him?"

"I'll do my best. I probably won't be able to contact you again for several hours, until after the hearing."

"I need a drink," Pam sighed.

"You can have _a_ drink."

"I'm going to have a drink – just one – then I'm going to go sit in my son's room and watch him sleep until it's time for him to get up for school."

"That sounds like a great plan."

XXXXXXXXXX

Returning to the hotel just before 8:00am, Lang mused about how rare it was that she needed to play both the important-FBI-agent card and the damsel-in-distress card in the same conversation. But play them she had, and successfully. A short time ago, she'd gone into the local medical clinic and spun a tale of how she needed to fly back to the States to start a new assignment, how she would be traveling all night and just can't sleep on planes any more since 9/11. And was there anything they could give her that would help her relax a little and get some rest? She wasn't disappointed that the doctor only prescribed three tablets; a three is easily altered to become an eight.

Lang entered the corridor on which Alex's hotel room was located, falling into step with Sullins who was headed the same way.

Sullins began, "Good morning, Agent. We're on the road at nine. Ramirez said you didn't want to get Mahone going until now?"

"Yes sir. Alex was, uh, in the bathroom most of the night. Apparently Panamanian prison rations don't agree with him. I doubt he'll want much breakfast and I thought he could use the sleep."

As predicted, Sullins' amusement at the other man's discomfiture distracted him from asking Lang any probing questions. She subtly edged ahead as they approached Mahone's door, pausing and looking back at Sullins when the guard stepped aside.

Sullins took the hint, "You want to deal with him? Fine. Downstairs. One hour." He headed off down the hall.

Lang knocked, then motioned to the guard to use the key card. Upon entering the room, she saw that Mahone was just as she'd left him: sleeping on his side with the covers pulled up over his shoulders. Lang came around behind him, to the side of the bed, and said tentatively, "Sir?" Getting no response, she tapped his shoulder and called, "Alex, wake up."

He groaned and pulled away, but after a couple of repetitions he muttered, ". . . 'mm awake, I'm awake."

He didn't move or give any other signs that he actually was awake, however. Lang reached across his body to try to unlock the handcuffs she'd fastened loosely around his wrists when she'd left earlier, in case Ramirez or Sullins looked in on him while she was gone. Not able to reach the lock without pulling on his wrists, which already bore some cuts and scrapes, she went to the empty side of the bed and climbed on to get a better angle. As she sat on the bed with him, fiddling with the key and the handcuffs, she noticed that he was looking straight at her. And laughing. Well, not really laughing – he hadn't cracked a smile or made a sound. But his eyes were twinkling teasingly.

Finally getting the cuffs off, she quipped, "I won't tell your wife if you don't."

That did elicit a chuckle, followed by a wince, as if even such a small movement pained him. Shooting a quick glance up at Lang and then away, he asked, his voice rough, "Last night, Pam, on the phone – that, uh, really happened?"

"Yep," Lang answered, touched by his awkwardness at having to trust her to help him distinguish fantasy from reality.

"But she wasn't actually in the room here, after that, right?"

Lang smiled warmly, "Um, no. That would be a hallucination."

"Dream, I think. My hallucinations are never nice." He closed his eyes. Lang couldn't tell whether he was steeling himself to get up or drifting back to sleep. In case it was the latter, she scooted off the bed and announced briskly, "We have to be out of here in an hour. You should get ready."

Taking a deep breath and exhaling, Mahone pushed himself up to a sitting position, then wrapped his arms around himself as the tremors kicked in again in force. He stared over at the bathroom as if it were a distant shore.

He really did look wretched, Lang observed. Always a bit on the pale and thin side, his complexion had faded to the color of oatmeal and lines of strain sharpened his features. Bloodshot eyes, framed by dark shadows, seemed to be propped open through force of will alone. If she didn't know that he'd just woken up she would've guess that he hadn't slept in days. Mentally, however, he seemed reasonably all right, though there was something about the fixedness of his stare right now that was troubling. He began scratching at the inside of his left wrist, caught himself doing it, and, in a jerky motion, tucked his left arm under his right.

Lang sighed, "I have something that might help." She drew the small amber prescription bottle out of her pocket and held it out for him to see.

Alex's eyes lit up, relief washing over his features. Then the corners of his mouth tightened almost imperceptibly as he read the label on the bottle: Valium, 5mg.

_Hey, getting you through today was my goal, not getting you your drug of choice, and if something lighter does the job, so be it. Plus, not surprisingly, health care workers tend to become suspicious if one asks for a particular medication by name. And guess what: I'm not completely comfortable with having just committed fraud to get this stuff, so you'd best back off and not give me any crap about it . . ._

Lang didn't actually say any of this, but some of it must have shown through her expression. Mahone looked duly chastened. A smile ghosted across his lips and he said very sincerely, "Thank you, Felicia."

Lang shook a pill out of the bottle and gave it to him, then went to get him a glass of water. She was pretty sure he'd already dry swallowed the pill by the time she got back, but he accepted the water and took a long sip. "One, ah" – his voice cracked and he took another sip of water, studying the way the water swirled in his shaky grip rather than meeting her eyes – "One isn't going to be enough."

"I know. But you kind of look like you might pass out at any minute, even without chemical help. Assuming that doesn't happen, you can have another before we go."

Mahone nodded, a slight flush over his cheekbones the only indication of how humiliating this must be for him. Now might be a good time to give him some space, Lang thought. She brought Alex's travel bag over to the bed, and prepared to take her leave for a while under the excuse of making a coffee run.

Before she could announce this intention, however, Mahone threw her for a loop by asking, "So, ah, when were you gonna tell me about what happened to the last guy who testified against these bastards?"

His tone was far from accusatory; in fact, it was almost playful – like he was messing with her in order to change the subject. Lang responded in kind, "Would it have made a difference in your decision to do it?"

Something flickered within the pale, deep-set eyes, something that reminded Lang that the broken down man before her was the same dynamic, indomitable bloodhound of the Fox River chase. While the prospect of having his mind crumble to pieces in a foreign prison clearly scared the hell out of him, the prospect of a sudden violent death . . . didn't. That was a fear that Mahone the FBI agent, Mahone the soldier, had dealt with long ago. Of course he didn't want to die, but that particular stick wasn't one they could hold over his head to control his behavior. Solemnly, yet with a hint of a self-satisfied smirk, he shook his head and answered, "No. No, it wouldn't."

"All right, then. I'll leave you to get ready while I go find some coffee." Since Alex's hands were still shaking, and he had just taken a depressant, and he was probably dehydrated from the sweating and vomiting, she remarked, "I guess caffeine is the last thing you need right now, though."

His look of dismay was truly comical.

"Oh, relax," Lang laughed, "I didn't say I wouldn't bring you one."

XXXXXXXXXX

It was 45 minutes into the hearing, and Alex was looking harried.

"So, Mr. Mahone, comparing your testimony with previously documented facts, it seems that your primary contacts within this 'Company' – Mr. Kellerman and Mr. Kim – are already dead. What evidence do you have that the organization exists beyond these two men?"

Things had gotten off to a less than stellar start when the chairman of the committee asked him when he was first contacted by the Company. An easy question, one would think, but Alex drifted off into a diatribe about how you never know when you are in contact with the Company so he couldn't say exactly when he was or was not. That might be true, Lang acknowledged, but it made him come off as evasive or paranoid. It took a verbal slap from Sullins (hissing under his breath, 'Say something useful!') to rein him in.

Since then, Alex had done a bit better. As far as Lang could tell he wasn't hallucinating, and his tremors had diminished considerably, but he was clearly struggling to keep focused. In response to specific questions, he'd managed to give a fairly coherent account of what he'd been blackmailed into doing and how that fit into the goals of the Company. Yet, trying so hard to be absolutely truthful, he tended to get tangled up in the details.

"There were . . . there were others who they reported to," he answered, "Neither of them was in charge of everything."

The interrogator wasn't hostile, but he was persistent. "Names?"

Mahone looked perplexed for a moment, then he blurted out, "Look, it wouldn't be much of a secret organization if I knew that, would it?"

Restrained chuckles rippled around the room. Mahone pinched the bridge of his nose and took a steadying breath. "Kellerman, sometimes there was a woman he spoke to on the phone. And Kim, everything about him just screamed upper-middle management. It was obvious when someone was pushing his buttons, when he was throwing his weight around because he could. How do I know? This is what I do – figure people out – what I did, anyway . . ."

He trailed off, recoiling from the phantom pains of his old life, but then he looked sharply at Sullins and said, "They must have a hold on someone in your office. After . . . after Apolskis, who told you to back off my case?"

Sullins, looking startled at being addressed directly, replied, "I got the call from Central – don't remember anything hinky about it." He sneered, "I just thought somebody high up had way too much confidence in you."

"Well, if we track down who gave the order, that might tell us who's involved . . ," then, wheels turning, Alex jumped to another tack, "The nephew – Borroughs' son. Lots of weird decisions made in his case. If we can find out who was pulling the strings . . ."

"That," the chairman interrupted, hand upraised, "is an avenue that can be explored at further length stateside – pending the decision of this panel, of course. If no one has any further questions . . ?"

XXXXXXXXXX

'That could've gone worse,' Lang thought. In comparison with Mahone's normal, tightly controlled press conferences . . . let's just say he would probably look back on today's performance with embarrassment. And the hearing clearly was not the mere formality that Sullins had predicted. But if she had to lay odds, she would bet that Alex done well enough to convince the panel that he had something to offer as a witness.

She would have shared these thoughts with Alex, but, at the moment, he seemed to require all of his energy to sustain locomotion. Lang and Sullins were escorting him to the place where they would await the committee's verdict, with Mahone walking between the two active agents, hands cuffed in front of him. Lang was pretty sure that, were his hands cuffed behind him, he would not be able to manage. As it was, his gait was slow and stiff. He'd begun to tremble again, though it was probably as much from fatigue and muscle strain in the aftermath of last night's exertions as from the withdrawal itself. He paused, swaying slightly.

"What the hell is going on with you?" Sullins prodded.

"I . . . need to sit down," Alex replied weakly.

The lack of snark in Mahone's retort and lack of color in his face apparently convinced Sullins that this was not the time to hassle him. Sullins shifted his posture so that he could catch the other man, if need be, while Lang scanned the corridor for benches. Spotting one, she said, "There's a place to sit up ahead. Think you can make it?"

Apparently he did, because he continued walking. They had only gone a few yards further, however, when a sound riveted their attention. It was so soft that one wouldn't think it would be detectable in a moderately crowded corridor, yet it poured a shot of dread into Lang's soul: the swish of guns being drawn from beneath suit coats.

Time slowed, prolonging hurried actions into a languid ballet. Two men in dark suits took aim at the agents, while a third, in a bomber jacket, covered the rear. Lang willed her hand to move quicker, to get her weapon out to return fire, all the while trying to ignore the voice in the back of her mind that did the math: drawn weapon vs. getting weapon out of holster, the former always wins.

Before she could complete any action, a forceful push to her shoulder sent her stumbling sideways into a hallway off the main corridor. As she fell, she caught a glimpse of Mahone pivoting gracefully back to face the gunmen, hands still outstretched from shoving her.

Then the corridor exploded with the sharp percussive beat of gunfire.

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Author's note: Uh, please don't hate me! Let me know what you think.


End file.
